The Fall Finale Dissection Continues

Katie's parents weren't present as her Dad died in a motorcycle accident and she refused to have her mother present during questioning, so another adult was present. Assume mother would refute her version of events in her 'diary' and be horrified of course.

Hello, finally managed to watch! and read all your comments. SO much to say. Overall I enjoyed it. I found it a bit disjointed in terms of plotlines unfolding - I felt they were setting it up to be some drawn out mind game, and then PS just capitulated and confessed to Stella. I enjoyed their interview v much, just felt it didn't fit with what came before.

I still LOATHE the Benedetto girl character - and agree with pp that her storyline seemed ultimately to have no significance. I think her character was totally ill conceived and the performance was weak (why must she ALWAYS smile when she talks?!!). There's no way that the interview with Merlin wouldn't have scared the shit out of a 16 year old, unless they were a psychopath, and they leaned so heavily on her being infatuated or thinking it was some sort of game...the transition just was not convincing. Her blonde friend was also not horrified enough by the prospect of a serial killer .

And would she have been out at home before her / Spector's trial??

What I enjoyed most was the explicit exploration / discussion of male violence - Gibson's conversation with Burns, and her response to Merlin in bed. I believe her when she says that she loathes Spector. I don't assume that her fascination with him has collapsed into something sexual - in the interview and her conversations afterwards she not only seems perfectly in control, but also unimpressed by his sexual aberrance, which she finds ordinary... I don't think she's guilty of the same. I think her horror at the end can be born of a non sexual obsession, her obsession with the job, the fight, her hatred of misogynists. What Spector said about letting men perish rang true and I liked that the writers didn't have her deny it, nor did they soften the portrayal of men, which was pretty unforgiving. My reading of the Olivia scene was just that Gibson found it abhorrent that he be afforded such a privilege (of lying to his daughter) when he's been running around strangling other people's children.

I enjoyed her dismissal of Sally Ann a great deal But am uneasy, like other posters, with the overall portrayal of women.

I also liked DCI whatsit's smirk at her turning up with Merlin. In fact I liked him as a character overall. Nice to see so many men working for a woman with no apparent problem with it.

I didn't like McNally being dressed up that way, it felt voyeuristic (not sure if this is quite what I mean), not to mention painfully obvious, and beneath Stella, who would/should have had more respect for McNally.

The house the woman were in in when husband stormed in - how did he know where she was?

He'd had a call from one of his pals / henchmen, saying he'd spotted her on the seafront in Bangor, and watched to see which house she'd gone into.

I must say I found that storyline the weakest, too full of convenient happenings (like that one^^ and Jimmy's association with the journalist). It would have worked better if they'd cooked something up more closely connected with the main plot, like someone else who was onto Spector. For me, most of the sub plots (the corruption ring and Olson, the Benedetto girl, Jimmy and his wife) fizzled out unsatisfyingly.